Values of the 60s thrive at local woman’s tech education center

Friday

May 18, 2007 at 12:01 AMMay 18, 2007 at 6:15 PM

In 2001, Swampscott resident Linda Saris left a position as chief financial officer and vice-president of a high-tech company in Bedford for the non-profit world. In 2002 she founded Salem CyberSpace, which she describes as “a community technology learning center to bridge the digital divide for low-income and unemployed adults and youth on the North Shore.

It covers the area between, but not including, Lynn and Gloucester.

“I am a child of the 1960s,” she said. “I made myself a promise that if I was successful in the corporate world, I’d give back.”

Neil Zolot/Correspondent

It covers the area between, but not including, Lynn and Gloucester.

“I am a child of the 1960s,” she said. “I made myself a promise that if I was successful in the corporate world, I’d give back.”

At the time she left, many companies were downsizing or closing altogether amid financial problems besetting the high-tech industry.

“We got hit like every other company,” she remembers. “The industry wasn’t doing well; the company was going through changes. It wasn’t a fun place to work any more. I was taking stock of where I wanted to go and it seemed like the right time to make a move.”

Saris, now 54, wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted to do, only that she wanted to go into a non-profit. She was really looking for a job as an executive director, but found her lack of experience made her an unlikely hire. Even her corporate experience was held against her “as if you couldn’t transfer that to the non-profit world.”

She also wanted to eliminate the commute to Bedford from Swampscott where she’s lived since 1980.

Research Saris had done told her there was a need for educational resources for low-income and unemployed adults revolving around technology. Eventually she hooked up with the North Shore Community Action Program based in Peabody that had grant money to open a technology learning center.

“I told them that was right up my alley,” she said. “CAP was started in the 1960s by President Johnson as part of the Great Society program. Many similar programs have been discontinued, but CAP survived.”

They were already leasing an old doctor’s office on Lafayette Street near a low-income section of downtown Salem, so Saris set up shop there to fulfill her mission. In the mornings and evenings CyberSpace runs computer classes for adults in English and Spanish. About two-thirds of her adult students are middle-aged women looking to upgrade their skills to find new jobs.

Not that many are re-entering the workforce, but rather they are working women looking for movement. Others are adults returning to college without the skills needed to use computers and e-mail as tools.

And not all the students are low-income either.

“I started out trying to reach low-income families, but I was getting people from places like Marblehead and Manchester,” Saris said. As a result, she instituted a sliding tuition scale based on a person’s ability to pay.

In February CyberSpace was accepted as a local training facility by the Workforce Investment Board, which oversees career centers or unemployment offices.

“We’re now eligible to accept students with training grants,” Saris explained. “To get approved we had to upgrade our curriculum.” The upgrade, partially integrated into the non-WIB affiliated classes, included longer and more comprehensive classes that cover not only how to use a computer but how to integrate its use into a job or job search. Some students, however, attend only the units in which they need help.

In the afternoon, CyberSpace is open to Salem students to use computers for schoolwork or job and college searches. Most are Spanish-speaking given the location of CyberSpace within Salem.

“I wanted a community center feel where everyone could benefit,” Saris said of her original concept of CyberSpace. “I’m not that structured. It’s small so we can do what the kids want to do. I want to encourage kids in technology-rich programs because the Spanish population in corporate America is lacking.”

She started out with pre-teens after speaking at Salem’s Collins Middle School. Rather than run ongoing programs specifically for ‘tweens, the original group is now in high school.

“I’m growing with the kids,” she said. “Most now come to do homework as opposed to enrichment projects they did when they were younger. Now that the sophomores are becoming juniors and are starting to look at colleges, do I morph again?”

There’s also a service in which CyberSpace does information technology services for other non-profit groups.

To handle all this, Saris has a staff of three instructors, a youth director, a computer expert, an administrator, volunteers from local businesses and Salem State College and herself.

Teenagers’ eligibility is based on their participation in the free or reduced lunch program in the Salem schools. Adults not affiliated with WIB pay tuition.

“I won’t run a class and lose money, but I will settle for breaking even,” Saris said of CyberSpace finances. “I can afford instructors for adults and I take in more money that I spend. It covers half of our rent. That’s about 20 percent of our $140,000 budget. Half of the overall budget is from grants from foundations, the rest through donations.”

Only once in the last five years has she had to go to NSCAP for financial aid.

While working and later leaving high tech, Saris was able to exercise stock options to the point where she doesn’t take a salary at CyberSpace, although her health insurance is covered through NSCAP. She’s spending her own money to subsidize CyberSpace, but money that might have been her salary goes to the organization.

“It was my expectation that by now I’d have raised enough money to pay myself, but I’d rather spend the money and deliver services,” she said. “I’d like to see this organization sustain itself in the future. It has to sustain a salary for an executive director. Not many people can work for nothing.”

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